Just a River In Egypt
by Konstantya
Summary: The Berlin Wall falls, and Prussia and Austria deny that anything has changed.


**General Note:** I'm only going to reformat my fics so much when this site is the one at fault. So If the formatting is weird (like, say, there _aren't any scene breaks where there should be_), please check out my profile for more info. Thank you.

Obligatory (but ultimately pointless) CYA: I don't own it.

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**Just a River In Egypt  
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Prussia was not one for physical affection. Germany was even less so. So there was really no explanation as to why they were standing there, arms wrapped tightly around one another. Germany's constant swallowing was probably because he had a dry spot in his throat. Just like Prussia's abnormally moist eyes were because of what he emphatically insisted was a piece of dust. A concrete wall was being torn down, after all.

Being _torn down._

Torn. The fuck. _Down._

Prussia kept repeating it in his head because the words sounded so damn awesome. _Too_ awesome, he realized, to be concerned with macho appearances. So, to hell with it.

He'd _missed_ his muscle-bound, too-serious little brother. That was the long and short of it. Decades of separation, and now they could talk, and touch, and—most importantly—_drink._

Hungary was there, too, off to the side, hands covering her nose and mouth, but a wide, unseen grin apparent in her eyes. He grinned back, over Germany's shoulder, crookedly and a little unsurely, and it only seemed to make her smile harder, her eyes glazing over in tears. The fact that she was genuinely glad to see him for once and wasn't about to crack him over the head with a frying pan gave him a weird, bubbly feeling, quite unlike his happiness at seeing West.

A weird, bubbly feeling that immediately fled when he caught sight of a familiar pair of glasses and an unruly curl sticking up from an otherwise perfectly brushed head of brown hair. Austria seemed to be surveying the fall of the Berlin Wall with his usual haughtiness, and his very presence made Prussia feel irritatingly sober. He wasn't even having the decency to pay attention to _him_, in all his majestic, free glory. Instead he was focused on that stupid _wall._

Something had to be done to remedy this.

"Shit, you're still wearing ruffles?" he asked upon walking over, flicking the other nation's cravat as he came to stand in front of him. "Those went out of style with the 18th century, man. Though," he added with a snigger, "the gay movement's picking up steam, so maybe you're onto something there."

Austria coolly refused to rise to the jab. "How like you to go after my sexuality, seeing as how you're too insipid to think up a wittier insult."

" 'Least chicks don't ask me to style their hair," he shot back, a little more viciously, flicking the cravat again, this time up into the other nation's face.

His expression darkening, Austria coldly knocked his hand away. Prussia caught his wrist, and it quickly deteriorated into a grappling match of sorts. And then somehow—he wasn't quite sure how—they ended up in an embrace, Austria's arms wrapped around him with almost as much vehemence as his brother's had been.

"You _idiot,"_ he whispered fiercely.

"Heh." The sound was too harsh to be affectionate, too soft to be offensive, and Prussia found himself gripping the other country's shoulders just as firmly.

After a moment, it seemed the awkwardness set in, because Austria stiffened defensively, and Prussia let go rather abruptly. "Yeah, well," he said, feigning flippancy, planting a hand on his hip while he languidly raked the other through his hair, as if those very appendages hadn't just been holding the other man, "not even Russia can keep my awesomeness down."

Austria straightened his coat and gracefully turned a bland look back to the people clamoring over the wall. "A shame. The Western world was faring quite well without your ego."

"Probably because they had a surplus of your arrogance to tide them through."

He sniffed. "It's called 'culture.' Not that I think you'd understand that."

"You know what? Fuck this," he sneered, his mouth twisting into a cocky, crooked grin, giving Austria's stray hair an unwanted tug before sauntering back over to his younger brother. He threw an arm around Germany's broad shoulders and started guiding him away, his voice audible on account of its brashness. "Shit. West, we need to go to a bar. Forty years with Russia has made me almost able to tolerate Four-Eyes over there. I need some better company, stat." Germany responded with something, but the words were too low to make out.

With a frown of mild disdain, Austria smoothed down Mariazell—or tried to, at least. Hungary sidled up to him, and they watched the brothers disappear down the street.

"You missed him," she said, her voice the very definition of coy innocence.

"He's unbearably obnoxious and uncouth."

Hungary wasn't daunted and grinned knowingly. "That's not a 'no.' "

Austria huffed once out of his nose and didn't respond. Instead, he turned his attention back to the Wall, steadily being torn down, even if people had to simply chip away at it, and his expression became thoughtful. "A drink, then?" he politely asked his companion, and began to step away from the commotion.

Hungary fell in step beside him, taking note that they were walking in the same direction of the reunited brothers. "Certainly not to celebrate the liberation of East Germany," she suspected.

He adjusted his cravat. "Certainly not," he confirmed, perfectly indifferent.

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A/N: Just a little something I had to get out. Inspired by Prussia's blog entry about when he went to go eat at England's, and Austria's comment was, "You IDIOT. Please come back to life." I think they really do care for each other in some very obscure, tsundere-ish way—at least in modern times. Not friends, certainly, but like old familiar rivals.

But if you want to read it as UST, you can read it as UST. Who am I to get in the way of some perfectly good yaoi undertones? XD Thanks for reading!


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